Airport month record

DENAPR

Denver International in April 2026

Departures: 25,345
Month: April 2026
National, same month: 79.8%
Carriers: 9

Historical statistics for April 2026, not live status or a forecast for this year’s April. For today’s conditions at DEN, see live FAA status.

DEN in April lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 79.8%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 25,345 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 913 at 89.8% on time.

Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the six carriers covered here at 89.8% on time across 913 flights.

On time

82.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 25,218 completed departures

Avg delay

56 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.27%

Nationally in April: 0.90%

Whole year

76.3%

DEN across all twelve months

These figures cover 25,345 departures from Denver International in April 2026. On time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the DOT's threshold, and the national comparison uses every US departure in the same month rather than the whole year.

Against the year

April next to DEN's other months

Against DEN's own year, April ran 6 points better than the twelve-month rate of 76.3%, which makes it number two of twelve months, best first. Cancellations were unusually low for DEN in April, at 0.27% against 0.79% across the year. Either side of it, March ran 76.8% on time and May 76.4%, so a trip moved by a few weeks would have landed in a worse stretch.

DEN month by month
Month	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
July 2025	29,433	63.0%	77 min	1.48%	D
August 2025	28,084	70.1%	69 min	0.73%	C+
September 2025	26,548	79.4%	54 min	0.12%	B+
October 2025	27,763	80.8%	52 min	0.13%	B+
November 2025	25,280	84.7%	62 min	1.44%	B
December 2025	26,026	74.3%	68 min	0.64%	C+
January 2026	24,484	82.3%	60 min	1.69%	B
February 2026	23,046	82.4%	69 min	0.88%	B+
March 2026	27,089	76.8%	72 min	1.50%	B
April 2026 (this page)	25,345	82.5%	56 min	0.27%	B+
May 2026	27,406	76.4%	58 min	0.28%	B+
June 2026	28,634	67.1%	64 min	0.41%	C+

Departure window

The best time of day to leave DEN in April

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 17 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am1,936 flights94.1%
8am–11am5,246 flights88.9%
11am–2pm5,537 flights82.8%
2pm–5pm3,679 flights78.3%
5pm–8pm5,635 flights77.4%
8pm–5am3,312 flights78.0%

Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.1% of the time, against 77.4% for the evening window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 5,635 flights scheduled in it.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.1%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Carrier by carrier

Which airlines ran best at DEN in April

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 89.8% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 73.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 7,198 flights means less than a ten-point one.

Carriers at DEN in April 2026
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	8,319	87.0%	53 min	0.07%	A+
Southwest Airlines	7,198	73.8%	41 min	0.15%	C+
SkyWest Airlines	6,093	84.9%	72 min	0.41%	B+
Frontier Airlines	1,717	82.9%	60 min	0.70%	B+
Delta Air Lines	913	89.8%	76 min	0.22%	A+
American Airlines	747	83.8%	156 min	1.61%	B
Alaska Airlinesthin sample	220	90.0%	54 min	0.00%	A+
JetBlue Airwaysthin sample	75	76.0%	63 min	0.00%	B+
Envoy Airthin sample	55	87.0%	39 min	1.82%	A

The spread between Delta and Southwest is 16 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 16 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

Route by route

Busiest routes out of DEN in April

Routes from DEN in April 2026
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DEN to PHX · Phoenix	824	84.8%	44 min	0.36%	B+
DEN to LAS · Las Vegas	646	79.3%	48 min	0.46%	B+
DEN to SLC · Salt Lake City	639	81.8%	50 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to LAX · Los Angeles	630	82.0%	40 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to SAN · San Diego	508	84.0%	41 min	0.20%	B+
DEN to ORD · Chicago	493	74.6%	120 min	2.23%	C
DEN to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	489	81.5%	90 min	1.23%	B
DEN to SEA · Seattle	469	84.0%	50 min	0.21%	B+
DEN to AUS · Austin	447	85.0%	52 min	0.00%	A+
DEN to ATL · Atlanta	442	88.0%	85 min	0.23%	A+
DEN to MSP · Minneapolis	441	89.1%	50 min	0.23%	A+
DEN to SFO · San Francisco	426	59.8%	54 min	0.47%	D+
DEN to LGA · New York	394	80.6%	51 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to COS · Colorado Springsthin sample	362	81.2%	58 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to IAH · Houstonthin sample	360	86.4%	54 min	0.00%	A+
DEN to MCO · Orlandothin sample	342	81.0%	52 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to MCI · Kansas Citythin sample	338	80.4%	40 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to PDX · Portlandthin sample	303	85.8%	50 min	0.00%	A+
DEN to SNA · Santa Anathin sample	297	83.2%	37 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to IAD · Washingtonthin sample	291	88.3%	55 min	0.00%	A+
DEN to STL · St. Louisthin sample	289	80.1%	48 min	0.00%	B+
DEN to SMF · Sacramentothin sample	289	73.4%	47 min	0.00%	C+
DEN to BOS · Bostonthin sample	284	73.2%	54 min	0.00%	C+
DEN to BNA · Nashvillethin sample	284	80.2%	52 min	0.35%	B+
DEN to EWR · Newarkthin sample	271	89.3%	53 min	0.00%	A+

Delay causes

What held DEN up in April

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 246,000 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
38%
Late-arriving aircraft
36%
National Airspace System
19%
Extreme weather
7%
Security
0%

36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 246,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 246,418 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, below the national 0.90% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.4% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 6.4% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

What to do with this

Flying from DEN in April

For a April trip through DEN: this is one of the better months to be flying from here, 82.5% on time with 0.27% cancelled. That is a base rate for the month as a whole; a single storm can still spoil a particular day.

Denver International (DEN), the whole year
DEN in July63.0%
DEN in August70.1%
DEN in September79.4%
DEN in October80.8%
DEN in November84.7%
DEN in December74.3%
DEN in January82.3%
DEN in February82.4%
DEN in March76.8%
DEN in May76.4%
DEN in June67.1%

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures